Consulting Stylist
by Silberias
Summary: Sherlock Holmes cuts hair, and today he is going to be cutting Molly Hooper's.
1. Chapter 1

Life happened to me for pretty much the last month. Will update things when I can, in the meantime have some frivolity. I may continue it if I continue to feel randomly ridiculous...

Enjoy!

* * *

Sherlock Holmes did not do just anyone's hair. The renowned hairstylist had done hair across every BBC channel to stint work at mini-series and on-location-films and occasionally at hole-in-the-wall-black-box theatres. It was rumored that he'd done Paul McCartney's hair as well as Victoria Beckham's, though there wasn't any evidence to substantiate these claims.

Molly's sister Anita—whose boss called her Anthea—had gotten her the appointment. "I'm tired of taking you places and having you just put your hair up in a pony tail. Your hair is lovely and if you have to have Sherlock's help to see that then that's what it's going to be. Besides, you'll get to ogle him up close—no more style magazines when you've got the real thing, right?"

Molly worked as a style magazine proof-editor, and saw a lot of Sherlock Holmes and his wild curls. Her bosses—everyone, in fact—teased her that she took so long on the proofs because she was in love with him. That wasn't quite the case. She just admired his hair cuts and his eyes and how confident he seemed in interviews. She liked that he didn't hide his opinion, and Molly certainly didn't disagree with the notion that he was the Gordon Ramsay of the salon.

"Now—let's see." He'd taken her wrist and guided her to the single chair in his salon, surrounded on three sides by mirrors and the fourth open to the natural light from the window looking out over Baker Street. His hands straightened her to look directly into one of the side mirrors, his fingers warm and light on her cheeks.

"Too much shampoo during washes, but the washes are spaced well enough. You had your hair trimmed four inches shorter on your last cut for split ends, and whatever idiot did it to you didn't mention you'd need less product. Well, your hair is my responsibility now. You'll not be hurting it anymore."

"But I've got such long hair and it—"

"Is very thick, yes, yes. Anita said you'd be petulant but I think she rather mistook it for innocence. She is what—five years your senior?"

"Almost six, actually," she said, trying to keep calm so that she didn't blush as she looked up at him as he inspected her hair. He tsk'd but didn't comment, instead his eyes narrowing at how the waves of her hair fell over her shoulders. He stepped behind her, putting his hands on her shoulders as he leaned his face in next to hers to smile unnervingly at her in the mirror.

"I think a pixie bob is what's in order. It will let us start on a fresh slate as to how to take care of your hair properly, and it will let you see all the possibilities of your hair while we wait for it to grow back out."

Molly stared at him, her jaw a little slack. Sherlock's eyebrows knitted together in a semblance of concern.

"Didn't your sister tell you? Once I take on a project like this I like to see my work go undisturbed by other stylists," he pecked her cheek and then spun her chair around to face the window, "something you know all about, with your proofing job. Now, I want you to tell me all about yourself while I save your hair."

* * *

Review?


	2. Chapter 2

Still feeling ridiculous. And Sherlollyish.

Enjoy!

* * *

Molly chewed on her lip a lot as she told Sherlock about herself. She tried to distract herself from the sound of snipping by staring out at the street the window looked out on. She tried not to shiver when his fingers lightly touched her shoulders and neck. She was about to be stuck with this man for months or even years—

"Does your work have any hang-ups about color?"

He seemed to be done with the traumatizingly huge cut, his sheers laid to rest on the side table. Sherlock took a few steps to face her, leaning on the sill of the window he'd had her looking out of. Molly took a deep breath—her head felt like a balloon without all of her long hair weighing it down—and gathered her wits.

"No, we work in fashion. Miranda just the other day came in with pink highlights and half her hair shaved off—" The hairstylist's mouth twisted into a sneer as he muttered a quick word. She couldn't quite make out what he'd said, but it sounded like _arty_. Miranda's hair had certainly been _arty_ though.

"Well, no raging psychopaths with scissors and dye for you Molly. Though I am thinking," he pushed off the sill and got in her face, one hand tipping her chin up and the other threading through her now viciously short hair. Molly held her breath and forced herself to meet his eyes rather than closing her own or looking away. For a dizzy moment she thought he was going to kiss her, but instead he leaned back a few inches and his eyes went from focusing on her face to her hair.

"All over color in…cerulean. It will darken your eyes a little and take away a lot of the warmth of your skin, in comparison, but with the right black dress," he let a smug grin light his face for a second with a meaningful raise of his eyebrows. Molly had seriously been thinking of developing a hat collection to hide her hair until it grew out a little, until she had the confidence to show off such short hair. But the blue…that would be hard to hide. People would constantly be asking that she take off her hat so they could see.

He was giving her the perfect avenue for getting comfortable with her new style, and she nodded with a nervous smile.

"Molly Hooper, I am going to kiss you senseless if you keep agreeing so prettily. You aren't afraid at all," his tone turned wondering at the end as he turned away and started rifling through the drawers of his station looking for the dyes.

"I see your work all the time…Anita probably told you all abo—well. You don't do things the way everyone else does them. You do them better…you're…precise, and you understand the limits of—um." He straightened slowly and stared at her as she spoke, completely attentive to her words rather than his current mission to concoct blue hair dye. Molly straightened up a little in her chair, uncomfortable under his scrutiny.

"You see me. You see…." He cleared his throat and set down the bottles in his hands. With a step he was behind her, and with one hand he turned her so she faced a mirror once more rather than the window. In the reflection he was staring down at the crown of her head, his hands hesitantly in the air over her shoulders before he won some war with himself and settled those hands firmly on her. Then he looked up into the mirror into her eyes.

"It would appear that I need to ask you on a proper date to keep you around. You didn't come here because your sister conned a haircut out of a celebrity stylist—you came here because. Oh. Well." His attitude had completely evaporated even as Molly's heart thudded loudly in her chest at what Sherlock was trying to say. He dropped his gaze once more to her hair, one hand going to fiddle with it, just threading fingers through the short strands.

"Cobalt blue would suit you better if you're stuck with me at a party." Molly smiled widely at that, just barely suppressing a giggle that of course he would think of that rather than if she would go out on a date with him. The answer must have been evidenced enough, though, with nearly two feet of brown hair scattered on the floor under his feet.

"Well you're the hairstylist, Sherlock. I just edit the proofs."

* * *

Review?


	3. Chapter 3

I think this is the end of the sass, but I dunno. And I'm kind of upset that people've been reading Sherlock as gay in this story. I put it under Sherlock/Molly because it's a shippy Sherlock/Molly story, not anything else. If you've been reading him as gay, please keep that to yourself if you review.

Enjoy!

* * *

She knew it was impulsive and she'd more than likely get hurt in the end, but she willingly jumped into the bizarre relationship Sherlock offered to have with her. He would get bored with her when he ran out of excitement over her hair and her willingness to let him do as he would with it—it was flattering to be his muse at the moment, but something kept her reluctant to believe this could last in the long-term.

He appreciated her though, getting her to sit in the room during appointments. Some of his clients gave her a wary eye, but Sherlock waved away their concerns. "Sometimes my tastes go a little too high fashion, Molly is here to help me keep my wits," or something along those lines was his typical response. Molly found she liked her pixie bob and the blue Sherlock and chosen, but he steadfastly refused to keep it short for her. They'd bickered a little bit over it, not very seriously but the topic did surface from time to time.

"Molly, we are progressing from short to long to let you _see_ your hair. Probably for the first time in your life—once you've grown it out long again, we can bring this back. Though," he put one arm around her waist and lightly touched her jaw with his free hand, "this bob is certainly fetching on you. I might have to do wicked things to you later on when you get back from work."

And he did to wicked things to her.

His self-admitted favorite was going down on her—and Molly couldn't deny that she loved him for the way he could drive her mad and the way his hair sliding between her fingers—but Molly loved it when she was on top and looking at him through her blue bangs and his curly hair was stuck to his forehead with sweat. She loved the way he clutched her hips so tightly when she came around him and nearly drove him over the edge himself—and she loved it more when he dug his fingers deeper when he lost it entirely. Her friends sometimes asked her out of the corner of their mouths—_but he's a hairstylist, isn't he gay as a goose?_ Molly would blush crimson as she refuted their assumptions.

At parties his brother forced him to go to—Mycroft Holmes was something of an unspoken leader in British fashion—Molly's hands weren't her own. Sherlock held her hand, or slung an arm around her lower back while his hip jutted into hers. He wouldn't move more than a foot from her for the evening. Needless to say she'd never come back from getting drinks to find him flirting or being flirted with by another woman.

Still Molly worried that once their project with her hair was over he would leave her. He got bored with his clients all the time—and she'd started off as his client.

"Molly," his voice woke her up from the light doze she'd dropped into after waking up briefly one morning. The sunlight from his window was warm on her front, and Sherlock was curled around her back keeping her doubly warm. She put her hands over his arm and squeezed once to let him know she was awake. She'd been dead tired recently, and hadn't had a good solid breakfast for weeks. She knew why, of course, but she hadn't told Sherlock yet. The worry still lingered that she was his project and muse and nothing more.

"Molly I—" she fought for a little more clarity through her drowse and turned over to face him. Sherlock held her closer, his lips just an inch from her own as he spoke.

"We should get old together. I'd like to get married—to you. It's sudden, but I was watching you sleep this morning as the sun came up and I realized I don't ever want to wake up alone or have you wake up in some other man's house. There was plenty of time for that before you met me, but now we're…us."

Molly smiled and kissed him, reaching up to thread her fingers through his curls.

"You're much better at hair than words, Sherlock. But yes, getting married would be lovely. Though I don't know _who_ I'll be able to book to get my hair done," her tone turned teasing, "My stylist will be busy that day." He laughed at that and leaned her back so he could settle on top of her, balancing on his elbows.

"Well, maybe he won't be too busy to see his favorite client?"

"I think it's going to be _clients_ unless we get married in the next six months." That brought him up short for only a moment before a truly wolfish grin swept over his face. Molly felt something inside her that had been tense relax as Sherlock leaned down to kiss her.

"I'm going to have to raise my rates to pay for nappies and a ring." She gasped and swatted him.

"Only you would bring those two up in the same sentence!"

* * *

Review?


End file.
